Escort for the highest judges – News International: Europe



[ad_1]

This was a new welcome to a Polish court: early Wednesday morning, Supreme Court justices formed a trellis to escort Judge Ma? Gorzata Gersdorf safely in the building. Since since Monday, the maximum age for senior magistrates has been lowered by the change of law to 65, Gersdorf, as well as ten other senior judges are only pensioners – so he claims the government and the Polish president put at his own expense.

The president of the Supreme Court guarantees a term of six years and this only ends in late April 2020, sees himself Gersdorf continues his mandate. The same is true for the ten judges, whose terms of office have not expired: A law can not retroactively change the terms and mandates of a senior judge. Hundreds of demonstrators celebrated the resisting judges with songs "Kon-sti-tucja" or "Free Court".

But the question is: what will happen in the struggle for the last judicial institution in Poland? Court President Gersdorf said she would start her summer vacation on Thursday. Already on Monday, she signed a decree according to which the highest judge of the Supreme Court, Józef Iwulski, was allowed to rule in his absence. "It's a directive that the president has published dozens of times when she's gone on vacation or gone on a business trip abroad," Iwulski said at a news conference. press conference with Maegorzata Gersdorf

The showdown could come when Gersdorf would return from his vacation. Parties of the ruling PIS party pushed party leader Jaros? Aw Kaczy? Skiing in a "violent solution", reports Gazeta Wyborcza. But with a violent suppression Gersdorfs initially little was won for the government. The majority of Supreme Court justices said on June 28 that she considered Gersdorf as the legitimate president of the court at the end of April 2020. According to several reports, PIS has failed to find another judge at the Supreme Court who would be willing to decide in parallel or against Gersdorf as President of the Court.

There could also be legal problems after the end of the Gersdorf era. The National Independent Judicial Council (KRS), a constitutional body playing a central role in the selection of judges, was unconstitutionally dissolved in early 2018 and is now under government control in its new form. Lawyers such as former constitutional president Andrzej Zoll or Adam Strzembosz, former president of the Supreme Court, consider the KRS unconstitutional and its decisions legally invalid. This would put all newly appointed judges in the highest court and their decisions in doubt. The same is true for more than 100 court presidents and their deputies to the general courts in Poland, which the Minister of Justice has appointed on the basis of another allegedly unconstitutional act since the summer of 2017. [19659002] How far has the Polish government left the rest of the EU? Wednesday in Strasbourg. In the European Parliament, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki rejected critics of the judiciary. Judges are now "much more independent than before". Borders would only be imposed on them "by professionalism and their own conscience". Earlier, a district judge waited for the prime minister's appeal and then appointed the judge for a case. This practice is over

In Strasbourg he was greeted by critics

In general, the Polish Prime Minister painted the image of a perfect country. Unemployment is the lowest in the EU and economic growth is first rate. The social policy of his government, with his help to families, enjoys "considerable support", of which "the left and the Greens can cut a slice". Above all, democracy in Poland has never been as alive as it is today. "Civil rights have never been so perfect, the media are more pluralistic than ever."

In the following debate, but he welcomed criticism. Many MPs had placards with inscriptions such as "the rule of law", "constitution" or "free courts" on their desks. The populist Warsaw government has "systematically eliminated democratic equalization mechanisms over the last three years," said Verhofstadt. The liberal cited the judgment of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, according to which the judicial laws "surprisingly recall the institutions of the Soviet Union and its satellites". (Tages-Anzeiger)

created: 04.07.2018, 20:46

[ad_2]
Source link